Dirty Chef

He made an appreciative sound as he bit into the sandwich and nodded in question at the movie he’d chosen.

I nodded once, uncomfortable next to him. It was all Isla’s fault. I felt…ugly. It was one thing to accept being ordinary, a whole other to feel like I shouldn’t even sit next to Adam.

While an action movie’s first explosion scene flashed across the flat screen, I chewed on a piece of bread and chicken, and I discreetly pulled up my sweats past my calves. I did have okay legs, I thought. I didn’t have to hide them.

“I was thinking about your idea for Valentine’s,” Adam said around a mouthful of food. “I like the ratings, but I was wondering if we should go bigger.” He definitely had my attention. “A four-course experience—breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert. An all-day Valentine’s date over the course of a couple of hours.”

“Aw, I like that.” I smiled and faced him better on the couch, crisscrossing my legs and forgetting about the movie and my sandwich. “It’s romantic. ‘Spend the day with me for dinner.’”

“Exactly.” He nodded and mirrored my position. “That’s where the ratings come in. Breakfast and lunch will be lighter, replacing the regular bread and the apps. I haven’t thought about the dish there yet, but dinner will be spicier. That’s when we crank shit up and go adults-only—”

“Wait, are you scrapping the cloudberry?” I thought that’d been a success in the making.

“No, and not the fried bacon either.” He smirked. “Bacon is a breakfast food, after all. I’ll just alter the setup.” He paused as he took another bite of his sandwich. “Here’s the kicker. I like what you said about the three dipping bowls, and I wanna use the pocket plates. What do you think about sample-size meals all throughout the evening? Three samples for breakfast, three for lunch, three for dinner…”

I pursed my lips. I hated halting his creative process, but I couldn’t see this working. We didn’t have the space, and he would work himself ragged with such an extensive menu for a single night.

“Could we compromise?” I suggested. “You have the best reputation in town, Adam. People will buy this experience without giving the menu a single glance—you have their trust. And partly because even though you introduce them to original combinations, you still keep it pretty simple.”

Adam nodded slowly, processing and scratching his jaw. “That’s legit. But I want the setup to have a pattern—a structure or a theme.”

I hummed and went over what he’d said about jamming a day of meals into one dinner. “You might need the variety in how the meals are presented,” I pointed out. “Otherwise, it might get lost that it’s the four meals of the day. For instance, what do Americans eat for breakfast?”

“Shit.”

I grinned. “A donut or a muffin or a biscuit—you get my drift. So, the first meal could be presented like that. Like, say you create a little biscuit burger, and we serve it in a plain paper wrap with eggs on the side or whatever.” I waved a hand, because the food itself was his territory. “Lunch could come in a basket. That’s when workers run out to get takeout or sushi or something quick—a salad, whatever.”

Adam’s eyes lit up, and the sight nearly made me choke on my breath. “If they preorder, we can have two selections. Lunch could easily be either something in a basket or on a small platter, a steakhouse assortment presented like a sushi plate.”

His excitement only fueled how gorgeous he was, though I couldn’t help but worry too. “We don’t want you to burn out,” I sang lightly. “Honestly, tesoro. It’s going to be a lot of work.”

He smiled and shrugged, stuffing the last of the sandwich into his mouth. “People will be talking about it for months. And I have you and Tracy.”

I couldn’t stop him once his ideas were flowing, and they were good. I was only mothering him.

“How many followers do we have on that Instagram thing?” he asked.

I reached for my phone on the table. “Last I checked, I think it was like forty thousand.” I pulled up our account and nodded. “Almost forty-one.”

“So, we’ll use next Monday to create a menu,” he said, referring to the only day we were closed. “Once it’s done, you do your thing. You post about the event on there, and we make it a week. Valentine’s week. Guests gotta make reservations, and it’s limited. First reservation, first serve.”

I nodded and jotted on my to-do list on my phone. “I’ll make a waiting list too.” There were always cancellations, no matter how popular you were. “CC ad,” I mumbled to myself. Submissions for ads to our local weekly paper Camassia Courier were due every Wednesday, and it was the only place we’d ever advertised. That was the good thing about having a restaurant in a smaller town; word got around fast.